Entity Framework 4 / POCO - Where to start?

Question

I've been programming for a while and have used LINQ-To-SQL and LINQ-To-Entities before (although when using entities it has been on a Entity/Table 1-1 relationship - ie not much different than L2SQL)

I've been doing a lot of reading about Inversion of Control, Unit of Work, POCO and repository patterns and would like to use this methodology in my new applications.

Where I'm struggling is finding a clear, concise beginners guide for EF4 which doesn't assume knowledge of EF1.

The specific questions I need answered are:

Code first / model first? Pros/cons in regards to EF4 (ie what happens if I do code first, change the code at a later date and need to regenerate my DB model - Does the data get preserved and transformed or dropped?)

Assuming I'm going code-first (I'd like to see how EF4 converts that to a DB schema) how do I actually get started? Quite often I've seen articles with entity diagrams stating "So this is my entity model, now I'm going to ..." - Unfortunately, I'm unclear if they're created the model in the designer, saved it to generate code then stopped any further auto-code generation -or- They've coded (POCO)? classes and the somehow imported them into the deisgner view?

I suppose what I really need is an understanding of where the "magic" comes from and how to add it myself if I'm not just generating an EF model directly from a DB.

I'm aware the question is a little vague but I don't know what I don't know - So any input / correction / clarification appreciated.

Needless to say, I don't expect anyone to sit here and teach me EF - I'd just like some good tutorials/forums/blogs/etc. for complete entity newbies

Answer 1

These articles might be of interest...the series really gets into the advantages and disadvantages of a POCO approach.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/adonet/archive/2009/05/21/poco-in-the-entity-framework-part-1-the-experience.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/adonet/archive/2009/05/28/poco-in-the-entity-framework-part-2-complex-types-deferred-loading-and-explicit-loading.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/adonet/archive/2009/06/10/poco-in-the-entity-framework-part-3-change-tracking-with-poco.aspx

In these articles the author mentions future articles that describe best practices in implementing Repository and Unit of Work patterns, but I can't find them. These articles are well written and I'd like to read more from this author.